


Night Terrors

by dsa_archivist



Category: due South
Genre: F/M, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-05-09
Updated: 1999-05-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 03:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11139807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsa_archivist/pseuds/dsa_archivist
Summary: Thatcher is having trouble sleeping.





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).

Night Terrors

This grew up like a weed out of some conversations with Katherine Fox about Things That Go Bump in the Night...Rated PG for a mild expletive and mild adult situations. Dragon Lady warnings, too. :) 

# "Night Terrors"

by Laura Higgins   


lhiggins@ttiadmin.tamu.edu 

Pain...*pain*...leg cramp legcramplegcramp...Meg Thatcher sat up in bed, blindly reaching to soothe the muscle that had so rudely yanked her out of sleep. Dammit. After waiting so long to finally drop off...blearily she made out the glowing numbers on the clock. *Two whole hours. Just wonderful.* She let her head drop back on the pillow, waiting for drowsiness to take over again, but two hours of sleep hadn't abolished the prickly feeling at the back of her neck. *Stupid television. I could have watched 'Relativity', drowned in over-romantic sludge. But no, I go for 'The Profiler'. And if stalkers and serial killers weren't enough, I top it off with 'Forever Knight'.* 

She pulled the covers a little higher around her ears. Maybe those children's fantasies had something going for them...if you're hidden under the blanket, the monsters can't see you. She grinned at the thought, tried to concentrate on pleasant, non-threatening scenes that didn't involve blood and fangs and insane murderers who slipped into your home while you slept... 'The Profiler' was stupid, anyway. What was that psychic-flashback thing about? And some stalker who gets into a locked-up house with the occupants right there and totally unaware of anything.... 

*What was that?* 

Meg held her breath and strained to hear. The air conditioning's barely-there hum was the only sound in the room. That must have been it--just air making an extra sound in the ducts. Or her imagination was working overtime. Nothing--....she could have sworn she heard it again. Not the steady white-noise of air conditioning, but...breathing? Not hers...belatedly she realized she hadn't exhaled in a while. No. Couldn't be. Slowly, tentatively she turned her head to look behind her. Empty bed, except for herself. No one, see? No one. Just a quick perfunctory glance around the room before-- 

Adrenaline raced down every limb, tingled through her fingertips. Someone was in her chair--a faceless, bulky shape in the near-darkness. She couldn't even scream, couldn't move or think for agonizing seconds as shock and terror froze every nerve...just stared wide-eyed at whoever it was sitting stock-still just inches away from the foot of her bed. 

Really stock-still, come to think of it. And wasn't the head kind of a funny shape? She squinted at it, trying to resolve the dark-blurred edges and shadings into coherent pieces. Not a person. Probably something she'd piled up in the chair before she went to bed. *But I didn't pile anything there, did I?* That did it. She obviously wasn't going to get any sleep any time soon, with her paranoia on overdrive. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, reaching for the lamp switch... 

And shrieked as the floor turned warm and yielding and unstable under her feet. Shrieked again as her feet identified the surface as a body and as she simultaneously lost her balance and landed hard in a tangle of legs and arms, hearing the body's faint grunt of surprise. And very nearly lost the last of her senses as she struggled vainly to get free and then felt something snuffling the back of her neck. 

"Meg?" The voice was muffled, slightly strained. She finally got her hands under her and pushed herself up. Fraser's bemused face looked up at her. "Hi." 

"What--what are you--" she whipped her head around and found herself nose to nose with the wolf. Fraser's gaze followed. 

"Diefenbaker, Inspector Thatcher is fine. You can go back to sleep." 

The wolf made a show of moving a safe distance away before curling up on her rug. Meg disentangled herself and sat on the floor, wondering if enough pieces of her dignity remained to assemble again. "What are you *doing* here?" she managed finally, staring dully at the man who still lay where she'd just squashed him. 

"I let myself in. You asked me...um, well, you suggested that after the stakeout was over I might come--" 

"I know *that*." 

"Well, and then the stakeout lasted a bit longer than Ray thought it would and, er, well, I wasn't sure if you would still be awake at that hour, so I let myself in, and of course you were asleep--" 

"And so you decided to sleep on the *floor*?" 

"Er--yes." For once he answered her next question before she had to ask it. "I didn't want to wake you." 

Meg groaned softly and dropped her head into her hands for a moment. Finally she stood up, unapologetically using him for leverage, and held her hand out to him to pull him to his feet. "Get in bed, Ben." She followed him, first casting one more glance at the chair, on which her dark-adjusted eyes could finally make out his jeans, his jacket, and his shirt folded over the backrest, the Stetson perched jauntily on top. 

"*Did* I wake you?" Ben murmured in her ear as they settled. She found a comfortable spot for her head against his shoulder. 

"No. I had a leg cramp." 

"Oh?" He stretched, managed to reach one large hand down far enough. "Which leg?" 

\------------------------------------------------------------ 

End. 

_The above is not meant to infringe on any characters, situations, etc. belonging to Alliance. :)_


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